Bill Would Require ISPs, Wi-Fi Users To Keep Logs 857
suraj.sun notes CNet reporting on bills filed in the US House and Senate that would require all ISPs and operators of Wi-Fi hotspots — including home users — to maintain access logs for 2 years to aid in law enforcement. The bills were filed by Republicans, but the article notes that the idea of forcing data retention has been popular on both sides of the aisle over the years. "Republican politicians on Thursday called for a sweeping new federal law that... would impose unprecedented data retention requirements on a broad swath of Internet access providers and is certain to draw fire from businesses and privacy advocates. ... Each [bill] contains the same language: 'A provider of an electronic communication service or remote computing service shall retain for a period of at least two years all records or other information pertaining to the identity of a user of a temporarily assigned network address the service assigns to that user [i.e., DHCP].'"
Infinite storage (Score:5, Funny)
I discovered that if I log my wifi router to /dev/null, it works really fast and never seems to fill up, how excellent!
Here's my log (Score:5, Funny)
Rorschach's log, Feb 20th, 1985
8:50 AM:
Internet connection activated by the scum of this city. Repugnant person scouring 4chan. May be a furry. Must investigate.
9:27 AM:
Wifi user connected to Google Docs. Probably writing communist pamphlet. His web document is shouting to Google's server "save me." I pull internet connection and icmp back "no".
9:45 AM:
Somebody killed one of my servers tonight. Server logs say "slashdot". Might be planning something big.
etc...
Re:Yeah right (Score:5, Funny)
That's the very idea, they will never tell you do do it or how they expect your logs to be autenticated, so everyone will be on the wrong side of the law and the days some cops will be pissed that he didn't find any weapon, drug or libertarian literature while reading your house, that will be one more of the many reasons he could arrest you anyway.
Re:Not a partisan issue (Score:4, Funny)
Where's the party who doesn't want any of this shit and thinks the government has much, much more important stuff on its plate right now?
France?
Just email the logs (Score:1, Funny)
Just email the logs daily to your local congressman. They have an email retention policy don't they?
Re:Yea... (Score:5, Funny)
There are 3 sorts of responses to this post.
the first type, which I expect to see shortly, is from the "tinfoil hat" contingent; the type that will tell you to take off your tinfoil hat when you post anything about the Echelon system, for example.
The 2nd type is from the "jaded acknowledger's" contingent; usually it takes the form of "No Shit. But what you gonna do?".
The 3rd type is from the "meta" group. Hi.
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Good Joke (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Infinite storage (Score:3, Funny)
If they ever request logs from you, just give them a printout of /dev/urandom and call it a day!
Re:Yeah right (Score:5, Funny)
He means the Constitution.
Re:Good Joke (Score:5, Funny)
If your backups "just happen" to get microwaved or otherwise destroyed, you'll quite likely be getting charged with destruction of evidence.
I'm sorry, could you repeat that? I couldn't hear you over the sound of my degausser warming up.
Re:Yea... (Score:5, Funny)
Hi.
Re:Yeah right (Score:4, Funny)
For starters, don't post anywhere on this article.
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Re:Generate your own 'fake' logs (Score:4, Funny)
What, the Amish use WiFi now ??
* goes check if his hotspot has reflectors
Re:Good Joke (Score:5, Funny)
And somewhere in the background, you can hear the Trusted Computing machine starting up...
Thank god it's running windows - we've still got a while before it finishes booting!
Re:naturally... (Score:3, Funny)
Can we pass a law that prevents lawmakers from coming up with bills that have contrived acronyms in them?
Sure! We'll call it "The No Acronym Memes in Bipartisan Legislation Act"
Or Nambla.
Re:Generate your own 'fake' logs (Score:1, Funny)
> What's next, body cavity searches when you go to the library?
They already have these at my local library.
Or wait, maybe that guy was only DRESSED like a policeman..!
I have a simple solution. (Score:3, Funny)
Ergo, the solution is to simply not generate a log.
Hound your ISP about it, too.
Re:GOP (Score:3, Funny)
George and Teddy and friends. They're they neighborhood bullies. On any given day, they'll give you a choice of which one is going to beat you up. Who do you like best, George or Teddy?